‘I suppose so,’ said Sarah, fluttering her fan. She spoke in one of those high, breathy feminine voices that Collis had always found absurdly attractive. But it was what she was doing with her fan that intrigued him more than her voice. There were all kinds of secret code signals that young girls transmitted to their beaux by means of fans and handkerchiefs and even dance programmes, and if Collis’s experience of New York balls was anything to go by, Sarah Melford was plainly signalling, ‘I’d love to make your acquaintance.’

He gave her his finest seductive look, all melting and hurt and worried, as if he had loved once, and loved again, but his heart had been crushed by misfortune and cruelty. She looked back at him, and her eyes widened. He knew he had her attention, if nothing else.

‘What do you do, Mr Edmonds?’ she asked. ‘Or are you a gentleman?’

Collis said, with soft regret in his voice, ‘I was a gentleman, Miss Melford. I had all the breeding and the education that a gentleman requires. I lived in New York on independent means.’

‘But?’ asked Sarah Melford.

Collis dropped his gaze. She was sweet, and she might be making signals with her fan, but she was shrewd, too, like her father, and if he knew anything about twenty-year-old girls, she was even harder than her father understood possible.

‘There was some unfortunate speculation. My family lost all their fortune. My father died as an indirect result.’

‘I see. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be. My father enjoyed the better part of his life with the same intensity that he would have hated the worse part. But now I’m here in San Francisco to make a fortune of my own.’

Sarah raised her fan, spread it wide, and looked at Collis over the curved top of it. Two questioning eyes over a decorative picture of a Persian garden, with peacocks.

‘Come on, now, Sarah,’ said Laurence Melford. ‘I’m sure Mr Edwards wants to see the show for himself. Don’t you, Mr Edwards?’

‘No, no,’ said Sarah, fluttering her fan again. ‘I wanted to ask him how he was going to make his fortune, in what kind of endeavour. I think he’s terribly courageous.’

‘Some nonsense about railroads,’ grumbled Laurence Melford. ‘Now, really, Sarah, we have to go in.’

‘Railroads?’ asked Sarah. ‘But there are no railroads in San Francisco. At least, none to speak of.’

‘There will be, Miss Melford,’ said Collis. ‘I’m going to build one.’

Laurence Melford interrupted, ‘You think you’re going to build one, sir. But take it from me that you will never succeed. Now, if you don’t mind—’

‘Mr Melford,’ said Collis, in a much sharper tone, ‘I will bet you anything you care to name that I will succeed.’

Laurence Melford pulled a testy face. ‘I don’t make bets, Mr Edwards. Especially not with artisans.’